Sudan said on Thursday it was banning U.S. companies from working with international peacekeepers in Darfur and would not renew a contract held by a unit of U.S. defense firm Lockheed Martin Corp.
The move deepened a rift between Africa's biggest country and the United States, which this week suspended talks on normalizing ties after a decade of U.S. sanctions.
"We are not going to allow American companies in this country with the Mission in Darfur," said Sudan's ambassador to the U.N. Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, at the start of a visit by the U.N Security Council to Darfur.
"There are sanctions ... so they can not benefit. Why are they sanctioning us?"
Abdalhaleem added Sudan would not renew an engineering contract held by PA&E, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, when it finished in July.
Relations strained
U.S. Sudan envoy Richard Williamson suspended talks on normalizing relations with Sudan this week, saying northern and southern Sudanese leaders were not serious about ending recent clashes that have stoked fears of a return to civil war.
Relations have been further strained by Washington's use of the word "genocide" for the Darfur conflict — a description that Khartoum rejects.
The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Sudan for more than a decade.
Sudan's ambassador said officials had already given PA&E a three month extension from the end of its last contract in April to July. But it would not be extended further.
"It is final," he said.
Sudan would prefer to offer contracts to African countries, he added, but would still consider bids made by European groups.
The Security Council envoys drove past a large PA&E sign as they entered the headquarters of the joint U.N.-African Union Mission in Darfur during a visit to El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, on Thursday.
No competitive bidding
A U.N. internal investigative unit in January said it was investigating how the U.N. came to award a $250 million contract to the Lockheed Martin subsidiary without competitive bidding. The U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services said the contract was to build five peacekeeping bases in Darfur.
International experts say more than five years of conflict in Darfur have killed 200,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes. Khartoum says 10,000 have been killed and blames the Western media for exaggerating the conflict.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court prosecutor said Thursday he would seek new indictments next month against top officials, accusing Sudan's "entire state apparatus" of involvement in crimes in Darfur.
Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo's address to the U.N. Security Council coincided with a visit by envoys to Darfur, scene of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Khartoum has accused Moreno Ocampo of wrecking prospects for peace in Darfur, and Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told a visiting U.N. Security Council delegation that certain groups were exploiting the crisis for their own ends.
Arrest warrants issued last year
Judges at the ICC, set up in 2002 in The Hague as the world's first permanent court to try individuals for war crimes, issued arrest warrants for two Sudanese suspects in April last year, but Khartoum has refused to hand them over.
Moreno Ocampo said Sudan was not cooperating with the ICC and was taking no action of its own against the two, government minister Ahmad Harun and militia commander Ali Kushayb.
Instead, he said, Sudanese officials had waged an "organized campaign ... to attack civilians" in Darfur.